Astrokev

It would probably be a good idea for me to grease the southern bolt. I have a "modified" bolt which is supposed to be stronger than the SW original, but the thread has a very loose tolerance in the female thread of the mount. Grease would help this a little, would give slightly smoother turning, and would help resist corrosion. Not sure what metal it's made from but it certainly ain't rustproof!

Absolutely. And to add to that, why on earth did SW design the altitude adjustment the way they did. For high latitude locations the design is not really fit for purpose, hence the need for third party fixes.

Here's the cap back on the mount. I reattached with 3 small double sided foam pads. Once I'm finally happy that everything works, and I won't need to remove the cap again, I may glue it back on with rubber based adhesive. The 3 holes are fairly inconspicuous and allow easy access to the grub screws to loosen / tighten as required. I marked the hole positions direct from the mount using a simple paper template, and then stuck this to the cap with tape. They drilled out very easily using a hand drill. From memory the bit was around 4mm to accommodate the 2.5mm Allen key.

Great idea Alex. I'm sure there must be lots of users who have similar difficulties. I'll post another pic once I've reattached the cap with the hole mod, just so folks can see how it looks.

Well, today was the day. Decided to try and remove the disk using just a craft knife whilst heating it with a hairdryer. After several minutes I didn't seem to be getting very far and I was about to give up - the recess was making it very difficult to get the knife under the edge of the disk, and the heat didn't seem to be doing anything. My efforts also started to scratch the white paint around the edge of the disk. But then I managed to get the tip of the knife under and was able to gradually wiggle and twist it until the full width of the blade went under the edge. It was then a matter of working my way around whilst continuing to apply heat. After another 5-10 minutes the disk popped off, without any damage at all. The paint around the edge is slightly scratched in places but nothing to overly concern me. My PC is in the repair shop being fixed, so I'm posting this from my phone. Below is a picture of the mount after removing the disk. No idea how big this image will be since I haven't been able to adjust the size for the web! I've loosened the three Allen bolts one quarter of a turn, and the head now moves in altitude much more easily. Result! ? Next job is to drill three holes in the disk to allow future access to the bolts, and then to reattach the disk. I'll do this tomorrow. Thanks @Juicy6 for this idea ??

My hairdryer (not that I use it!) could melt lead ? so I'd have to be careful, but definitely worth a try. A multi-assault approach is probably called for! From memory (I can't be bothered to go into the observatory to check) the disks are slightly recessed into the mount facing, so may be tricky to get a blade behind the disk to ease it off. Quite looking forward to this, but then I'm a bit sad

Thanks. I wondered whether acetone may be any good (nail varnish remover?). Tricky without knowing what type of glue they use. I'm guessing it's a rubber type adhesive.

Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear. My point was that I don't need the adjustment rail (not yet anyway ?) so to buy this product would in essence be paying £129 for just the caps. Good point about only needing to remove one cap to loosen the grip on the alt axis. I better make sure I try and remove the correct one ?

I'm not quite that mad. I don't have a bendy bolt problem so it seems rather pricey just for a couple of caps! I'll try and soften the adhesive and see if I can gently prize the caps off. If they break, well, so be it! It's a shame it's not possible to get (sensibly priced) replacements.

Thanks. That sounds worth a try. I know they're easily broken!

Ouch that sounds painful. Loosening the 3 screws sounds the way to go Can you suggest how to remove the cover without breaking it?

Hi All Now that I have my NEQ6 permanently mounted, I want to spend time getting the polar alignment as accurate as possible, but have a frustrating problem - The altitude axis is incredibly stiff. This is nothing to do with the problems some have encountered with the alt adjustment bolts bending (as an aside, I have "upgraded" alt bolts, although these are pretty rubbish to be fair, with the threads being a poor fit compared to the standard bolts, and the metal showing signs of rust - very poor value for money in my opinion). The axis is so stiff that I can remove the alt adjustment bolts completely and the axis supports my scope and counter weights without budging (not recommended!). This makes fine adjustment of the axis using the bolts really difficult. My method is to slacken the bolts then manually adjust the angle of the head by gripping the head in both arms and exerting a lot of force to move it, until it touches the bolt again. I then check the position through the PA scope and repeat this crazy method until it's correct. Accurate alignment is therefore more down to trial and error. Has anyone else had the same problem, and can anyone suggest a possible solution? I don't really want to take the plastic cover disks off and loosen the axis bolt, or even take it completely apart, but I don't know what else to try. I can't see that it's possible to lubricate the mating surfaces. Help! Many thanks for any suggestions. Kev

Sound advice! I'll be drilling holes for cables once I've got a decent hole cutter. As you suggest, I need to figure out exactly what I want, and where. At present, the plan is to put dado power trunking a few inches above the desk. I need to consider what my power needs will be to estimate number of sockets. I'm aware of the - calculate how many you need and then double it approach! And then there's reduced voltage supply for the pier, and lighting, switches etc. A lot to think about. I'm very much a novice when it comes to digital imaging and scope control, so this is a pretty steep curve for me and am feeling my way a bit. I'm sure I'll be asking more stupid questions to help guide me! A big 4K monitor would look rather nice though!

Made good progress today. Here are a variety of pictures showing finishing touches to the warm room, which are fairly self-explanatory. The scope picture is the view from the desk. The only picture not shown is of me running to the kitchen with blood pouring from my thumb - Stanley knives and carpet tiles are a risky combo ?. I also put rubber sealing strips around the internal door, which now closes with a satisfying clunk. The seals will hopefully help retain whatever amount of heat I choose to put into the warm room! So, the only internal jobs left on the list are to install electrics and then fit lights. I may give my electrician friend a call over the weekend, although getting my PC fixed may take priority. This has been playing up big-time lately and I can't figure out the problem; all I know is it's been as fragile as walking on egg-shells for the last few weeks and seems to be getting worse. Outside jobs still to be done - laying a path and making some steps into the obsy, then doing a bit of landscaping and planting, to turn the building site back into something resembling a garden.

Managed to dig out the desk from the cabin and removed the top. Positioned the OSB template, marked out the laminate and cut out a slightly more attractive version of the new desk top. Pleased to report that it fitted into the space fine. I didn't have time to install the desk into the warm room, but I was able to put up a few of the wall battens that it will rest on. I also cut the metal box section from the old desk and screwed this back to the underside of the top to give it more structural support.

Still a bit to do, but I have to say it is nice to be in the scope room and not trip over tools on the floor or fall down holes between the joists!

Haha. Thinking of taking up a new hobby - cloud spotting.

Thanks Mike. Still a bit to do, but getting close.

Thanks Gina. Not quite finished yet!

Thanks Carole. I'll be keeping a watchful eye out for creepies, but suspect this is a losing battle!

Give me a chance ?, I only finished the scope room yesterday, and there's still bits to do in the warm room, and then I've got to fit the electrics and lights. Don't worry, I've got lots of bits of nice junk and I'm sure stuff will gradually migrate. Saying that, I'll only put useful stuff in there. Can't see any point cluttering the place up with stuff I'll never use. I rather like having space to move and empty space gives room to grow. If it was full from day one then I don't think I would have done a very good job at the design stage ?.

To give the rubber flooring a test run, and since the scope room is now finished, I thought it about time I reinstalled one of the scopes. The Moon was shining bright when I went in with the scope. By the time I'd got it mounted on the NEQ6, and rolled the roof open, it had of course gone cloudy. Grrrr! Anyway, here's a picture of a rather expensive cloud-watcher. Note the shelves being put to good use already

Thanks James

Brilliant (forgive the pun!). This is the sort of the thing I'm going to use in my scope room. How have you connected them up Alex?

Today, I finished laying the rubber flooring. I left a small gap of ~10mm around the edge, which is under the bottom edge of the wall panels (when I fitted the panels I raised the bottom edge off the floor by 18mm for this purpose). The rubber floor makes a huge difference. Having tried the room out this evening (before the clouds rolled in) it's so quiet, so no more clunking around in the middle of the night! Since it was sunny I thought I'd make good use of the good weather and clear out the cabin to try and find the desk that I knew was buried in there. The pictures show before and after the sort out. You can also see a pile of carpet tiles under the desk which I'll use for the warm room floor. The desk is too large to fit in the warm room, so my plan is to cut-out a piece to fit. I've measured up the room and don't think the room is wide enough to accommodate a decent width of desk if I put it under the window. So, rather than put a simple rectangular piece across the end of the room, I've decided to make use of the curved front edge of the desk. Fortuitously, the corner to corner dimension across the curved front edge is exactly the same as the width of the warm room. So, my plan is to use this as the front edge and position it at an angle across the room - see picture below. This will allow me to be able to easily see through the window whilst still having a decent width of desk. So, that's the plan. Now for the tricky bit. As I need to get it right first time, I've heeded earlier advice and have made an OSB template to check out the size and position. I traced the front curved edge off the desk. I can now use the OSB to mark out the piece I need, which will have to be cut at an oblique angle. I'm going to try and retain the steel square box sections supporting the laminated top.